Lumix DMC-GX85 washed out brights / blurry low light

[30sballarddad]

I am new to digital photography, and picked up a panasonic GX-85. I have the kit 12-32 lens, and also bought the olympus macro lens. When shooting with the kit lens, I seem to have two problems.

1) I am getting lots of washed out bright areas. An example is a photo of a living room, with the window open. The light is shining on the couch, and there is an "aura" around the areas that the sun is hitting. I get that the there is a big contrast in light, and that the camera might need to wash out the brightest areas, so that the rest of the picture looks good. The problem is the bright haze surrounding it. I have a UV filter on the lens to protect it from scratches, though taking this off doesn't seem to matter. Any tips on this?

2) I am also getting blurry low light pictures. When taking pictures indoors of my kids, the pictures are often a little blurry to moderately blurry. ISO 400 or higher. Sometimes even lower ISO's are a little blurry. From my film photography experience 20 years ago, I get that higher ISO's will loose detail, I just thought I would have better performance in this area.

Any advice on taking indoor pictures of a moving 4 year old? Do I need to shoot raw photo's and re-touch them in photoshop? Is the image stablization not on, and I don't realize it? Should I buy a better flash for it (Every picture I've tried with the built in flash looks like I used a flash)

 

[Mark B.]

Would help if you could upload sample images.

I am new to digital photography, and picked up a panasonic GX-85. I have the kit 12-32 lens, and also bought the olympus macro lens. When shooting with the kit lens, I seem to have two problems.

1) I am getting lots of washed out bright areas. An example is a photo of a living room, with the window open. The light is shining on the couch, and there is an "aura" around the areas that the sun is hitting. I get that the there is a big contrast in light, and that the camera might need to wash out the brightest areas, so that the rest of the picture looks good. The problem is the bright haze surrounding it. I have a UV filter on the lens to protect it from scratches, though taking this off doesn't seem to matter. Any tips on this?

Too much contrast between the open window light and the interior. With this much contrast you have to choose what you want more properly exposed. You'll have to live with a blown out window, or interior that's deep in shadows. You could also set up a tripod and employ HDR to balance them out.

As for the UV, regardless that you can't see the difference it's not doing anything to help. 20 years with interchangeable lenses and I don't use them, no scratches on my lenses. Use the lens hood for protection.

2) I am also getting blurry low light pictures. When taking pictures indoors of my kids, the pictures are often a little blurry to moderately blurry. ISO 400 or higher. Sometimes even lower ISO's are a little blurry. From my film photography experience 20 years ago, I get that higher ISO's will loose detail, I just thought I would have better performance in this area.

Most likely you're using a kit lens with a small aperture, so even with higher ISO your shutter speeds are going to be too slow to stop moving kids. You need to boost ISO, add light, or both.

Any advice on taking indoor pictures of a moving 4 year old? Do I need to shoot raw photo's and re-touch them in photoshop? Is the image stablization not on, and I don't realize it? Should I buy a better flash for it (Every picture I've tried with the built in flash looks like I used a flash)

RAW will not help one bit if your shutter speed is too slow. It my help recover some shadows and give you some more dynamic range. But your biggest problem is lack of light to allow a fast enough shutter speed to stop a moving 4-year old.

The built-in flash is not really meant to be the main source of light. Yes, an external flash unit can help - but only if you can either get it off of the camera or bounce from a neutral-colored wall or ceiling. Straight-on it will still look like a flash picture.

Mark

 

[Mark9473]

1) I am getting lots of washed out bright areas. An example is a photo of a living room, with the window open. The light is shining on the couch, and there is an "aura" around the areas that the sun is hitting. I get that the there is a big contrast in light, and that the camera might need to wash out the brightest areas, so that the rest of the picture looks good. The problem is the bright haze surrounding it. I have a UV filter on the lens to protect it from scratches, though taking this off doesn't seem to matter. Any tips on this?

The first suspect of course would be the UV filter. Best if you do a side-by-side with and without the filter in place.

2) I am also getting blurry low light pictures. When taking pictures indoors of my kids, the pictures are often a little blurry to moderately blurry. ISO 400 or higher. Sometimes even lower ISO's are a little blurry.

It's not a fast lens, so at a low ISO such as 400 you're probably getting too slow shutter speeds. Put the ISO at 3200 or 6400 and try again. I use auto-ISO with a 6400 limit.

From my film photography experience 20 years ago, I get that higher ISO's will loose detail, I just thought I would have better performance in this area.

It's worth noting that the Panasonic JPEG engine, as far as I know it from my G80, strongly prioritizes absence of noise over retaining detail at higher ISO. It is best to go into the menu and put the noise reduction at -5. You'll then get much better detail in your high-ISO images, and still sufficient noise filtering.

Any advice on taking indoor pictures of a moving 4 year old?

Do whatever it takes to get the shutter speed high enough, 1/125 or faster.

Do I need to shoot raw photo's and re-touch them in photoshop?

That doesn't really help for motion blur. Good for exposure problems, white balance correction (if needed) and noise filtering.

Is the image stablization not on, and I don't realize it?

Image stabilisation does noting for any movement that the subject is making, it only helps you keep the camera steady.

Should I buy a better flash for it (Every picture I've tried with the built in flash looks like I used a flash)

If you have a white ceiling then an upward bouncing flash would help.

 

[NoDOF]

I am new to digital photography, and picked up a panasonic GX-85. I have the kit 12-32 lens, and also bought the olympus macro lens. When shooting with the kit lens, I seem to have two problems.

1) I am getting lots of washed out bright areas. An example is a photo of a living room, with the window open. The light is shining on the couch, and there is an "aura" around the areas that the sun is hitting. I get that the there is a big contrast in light, and that the camera might need to wash out the brightest areas, so that the rest of the picture looks good. The problem is the bright haze surrounding it. I have a UV filter on the lens to protect it from scratches, though taking this off doesn't seem to matter. Any tips on this?

2) I am also getting blurry low light pictures. When taking pictures indoors of my kids, the pictures are often a little blurry to moderately blurry. ISO 400 or higher. Sometimes even lower ISO's are a little blurry. From my film photography experience 20 years ago, I get that higher ISO's will loose detail, I just thought I would have better performance in this area.

Any advice on taking indoor pictures of a moving 4 year old? Do I need to shoot raw photo's and re-touch them in photoshop? Is the image stablization not on, and I don't realize it? Should I buy a better flash for it (Every picture I've tried with the built in flash looks like I used a flash)

You're tackling two of the most difficult challenges facing indoor photographers, so don't get discouraged. The extreme dynamic range between the window and the rest of the room is most easily addressed by using fill flash to balance things out. You'll need to consult your manual to learn how, but most cameras have this feature, these days.

Another culprit is the metering system, which is reading all those shadows and increasing the exposure to bring them up to midtones. For this, you need to learn to use spot metering and/or exposure compensation. Manual exposure is also an option.

For the blurry 4 yr old, you need a shutter speed that can keep up with him. Don't be afraid of the higher ISOs. They are exactly what you need for this situation. That, and more light, whether flash or lamp doesn't matter.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

I'd get rid of the UV filter and if that doesn't help, simply accept that lens flare is a fact of life with some lenses, and so avoid shooting high contrast scenes. You may find another model of lens that has much less flare.

Regarding blurry images in dim interiors, understand that broad daylight might be five hundred to a thousand times brighter than what you find indoors, and so we'd expect most cameras to struggle with this. A high-specification lens and camera might capture about 30 times the amount of light as does yours, but at quite a cost, and greater weight and size, and so putting more light on your subject may be preferable.

I've had great success with placing a flash on top of my camera, but with the flash pointing upwards and behind me, so that the flash illuminates the wall which lights up on your subject, giving a good, soft, uniform luminance. Having the flash pointing directly on the subject usually gives unappealing, harsh light.